The co-founder of eConsumer Services®, Monica Eaton-Cardone was interviewed by SurfWatch Labs on their Cybercrime and Business Podcast.
The main topic of discussion was the October 1st EMV liability shift. From this date, merchants are liable for any fraud that occurs via point of sale if they have not upgraded their payment technology to EMV, otherwise known as Chip-and-PIN. Merchants who do not adopt the new technology will lose their rights to dispute any fraudulent transactions that occur through their payment terminals.

Eaton-Cardone explains that EMV is designed to protect cardholders from having their credit card information stolen when shopping in brick-and-mortar stores. It aims to eliminate fraudsters from stealing credit card information from terminals through methods such as skimming.

The way it works, as described by Eaton-Cardone, is you “dip your chip” into the terminal and the terminal communicates with your bank to confirm your identity. This, along with your personal PIN number makes the transaction so much more secure than just signing your signature.

There are a number of challenges, in addition to the initial expense of updating the terminals themselves, when adopting the new system. For example, small businesses may not have a high enough volume of transactions, or ever had issues with fraud, to generate a lot of fraudulent liability. Therefore they may not be looking at spending the money to upgrade. However, business owners always listen to the demands of their consumers, so if customers want this technology, the business owners will follow suit.

Eaton-Cardone predicts that fraudsters will shift from targeting brick-and-mortar stores to the online environment. Criminal entrepreneurs as Monica referred to them as, need to find new ways to make money, so they will migrate to another landscape.

This has been a service provided by eConsumer Services®.com. This order was placed through an endorsed merchant of eConsumer Services®; a customer satisfaction group whose purpose is to help regulate and improve the transaction standards of e-commerce activities. Endorsed merchants are required to maintain high marks for customer service, including and not limited to product information support services, 24 hour customer service options and excellent product value.